Guild Wars 2

sirsquishy.8531:

This 64bit client is a god send, its EXACTLY what we needed.

Totally agree.. it is AWESOME!

Sadly, the bottleneck isn’t our graphics cards, its our CPU (my config is almost identical to yours). GW2 is GPU lite and CPU dependent – it will likely not use more than 50% of a single core, and you will still get shoddy FPS.. the only way to improve it (that I have found) is to reduce the number of characters that are drawn to the lowest setting. Doing that seems to kick everything into high gear.

Kraggy.4169:

Just what limitations does using only 1 core have, in your opinion?

From where I sit it’s immaterial whether 1 core sits at 47% or 2 sit at 23% each, unlike LoTRO I perceive no performance problems duye to the client not being multi-core aware.

On another matter, I always turn off AO in every game and on every gfx card I use, I hate the black smudges which surround many animated objects and I see no improvement anywhere.

Its not what it might look like if the game was 23% over two cores.. its what it could do if it utilized 80% of all four. More processing power = more logical operations = more complex AI, better pathing (of Npcs), better Physics effects and lots of other lovely stuff. The game’s CPU utilisation is very very low.. and the FPS even on a high end rig still sees no real improvement.

Like all post processing effects, some love em, others hate em, that’s why they should be an on/off choice.

For me Guild Wars and Guild Wars 2, both represent the best in class of MMORPG; but graphically they are stuck with confinements imposed 10 years ago. I want to see the greatest MMORPG in history (Guild Wars 2); become even better by embracing better ways to do AI and pathing (pathing is still not great in GW2 – no lets be honest its horrible when an NPC rubberbands back to the set path they were going on after an encounter) – which takes CPU and better graphics utilizing Nvidia Gameworks or similar – so that we could have Witcher 3 level graphics in this most awesome game.

I don’t want to ever see a Guild Wars 3 scenario, i’d see that as an admission that the manifesto has failed in many ways. I want to see Guild Wars 2 evolve into Guild Wars 3, then 4 and on-wards, in much the same way that WoW has evolved with each expansion. WoW’s recent graphical upgrade moving to Dx11 and higher poly character models put it back in the frame as a current era contender. I still believe GW2 is a better game, but we do need to see a graphical upgrade that makes use of at least a mid-level PC specification – likewise it must also scale downwards so that those of our players that dont have PC gaming powerhouses can still play.

Dear lovely people at ArenaNet.

Thanks for the 64bit Client beta, this is exactly what I wanted to see – its working smoothly for me this is my configuration for your reference:

CPU: AMD 8350FX (4 Cores, 8 Threads) Black Edition 4.1Mhz (standard clock)
GPU: GTX 970 4GB (standard clock)
MOBO: ASUS Sabretooth 900FX 2.0
RAM: 16 GB

I’ve not had any problems running the 64bit client so far, and I am detecting a marginal performance increase. I’m also seeing RAM use going up to near 8GB when running the Game (with some other apps running in the background).

Couple of questions/suggestions from me:

a) Please could you prioritise your next big change to either:
a. Work with multiple Cores on CPU (typically the game runs core 1 at 47% and nothing on the other cores at all – there is SO much bandwidth you can utilise on modern 4 core setups).
b. Directx12 or Vulkhan (I’d suggest Vulkhan should be the priority) support
i. In many ways this would be ideal, because it will also address point 1 as well as creating a far superior product.

b) Secondly (no less important however) – how about integrating some post processing within the client (or even external to it)
a. Reshade/GemFx/MasterFx/SweetFX do go some way to helping, but support on those are patchy, installation can be fiddly and isn’t for ‘mainstream’ –this might actually be a quick win, since those tools are all open licence to use so could be incorporated into your product.
i. I’m thinking of one effect in particular – heat haze in masterFX (I think) if that could be enabled when we are in dry top the effect (pardon the pun) would be immense. But also the inclusion of Ambient Occlusion cannot be overstated – once it is enabled it makes the entire game look far far far better (check Wooden Potatoes You Tube Video for example (https://gaming.youtube.com/watch?v=a5i5-2X4wMA))
ii. There are a bag of tools there to be used by any developer that instantly make the game better looking and makes use of GPU features without degrading the performance of the game itself.

Thanks for listening, and thanks for making one seriously awesome game.

I’m one of your oldest fans Arenanet, but there are three things that stick in my craw:

1) I have 16GB of luscious RAM, but GW2 can only use 8GB of it – we need the client to go to 64bit!
2) I have a AMD 8350FX water cooled with a Corsair H100i – 8 Cores of shiny running at below room temp – but GW2 will only utilise 50% of one Core – we need Dx12 support!
3) I have a Asus Radeon 290 (Antrioscopic Filtering, Tessellation and HBAO – oh my!)– a quite excellent GFX card, that GW2 tends to ignore – we need at least Dx10 support!

In a sunless take down event.. I have to turn the number of characters to lowest to make this playable at the highest settings. On the highest settings otherwise, I will get 2-5fps during this encounter – even WITH the character limit set to lowest, this is still rarely higher than 15fps. I hate having to do this when streaming, frankly it’s a little embarrassing.

I stream using OBS, this requires a chunk of CPU power – when its on – fps drops in GW2.. (how can this be since GW2 itself isn’t using a whole core.. let alone the other 7! – NB there is little or no FPS drops on any other game I have streamed.

I also play other games (shock I know!) – lets discuss the Witcher 3 in contrast… it has very complex ploys and textures including Nvidia hair physx – with many NPCs on screen at once. I’m on an AMD card so to run the hair phys is more GPU intensive. Even with everything set to max, I will get above 30fps and more typically (when hair phys is off) above 60fps most of the time.

The game is three years old now – and to stay current you need to bring the client up to today’s standards. At the very least we need a 64bit client to enable access to memory above 8GB. HoT is the opportunity to set this right, not doing this is likely to drive a good proportion of those new players we have just seen arrive, away.

What I would like to see, is some optimisation going on.. I want to be able to play Edge of the Mists, with a zerg of more than 50, be able to stream it and not see the frame rate drop under 60fps. Right now.. even if I upgraded my CPU to an Intel i7 and a Titan – this would not be so.

Up till now, Arenanet has been easily my favourite developer in the world. You listen to your community and your communications are legendary (Love you Rubi!). Please.. let’s address this, it’s getting a bit silly now.

Thanks.. a very loyal customer.

No noticeable frame rate change since change over.